


till the sun's seeing through my eyes

by perfeggso



Series: Hanahaki Disease AU [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Small Town, Blood and Gore, Eventual Fluff, Hanahaki Disease, Heavy Angst, M/M, Vomiting, Witchcraft, a little bit..., a little bit?, college freshman! Mark, college-typical alcohol use, countryside sweetness with a deathly undertone, just some modern wicca stuff nothing major, magical soccer coach! Yuta, obvi, side nomin, you know what you're in for
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:28:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25740583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfeggso/pseuds/perfeggso
Summary: Yuta’s four years away had been a struggle, but eight was seeming like borderline cruelty.Yuta and Mark are next-door neighbors who grew up together, joined at the hip until Yuta went off to college.  Due to their four-year age gap, Mark's freshman year at the same school marks the halfway point of an unprecedented amount of time apart.  Yuta is sure he can handle it, until Mark's arrival home for spring break makes him wonder if the fondness he has for his friend might be blooming quite literally into something stronger.  It's up to him to handle the consequences.
Relationships: Mark Lee/Nakamoto Yuta
Series: Hanahaki Disease AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1842625
Comments: 20
Kudos: 45





	1. ace me out

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of this isn't necessarily gonna be fun, so heed the tags, I beg of you.  
> 

“Sunny,” Yuta reckoned, was the word most often used to describe both him and Mark – if in profoundly different ways. Yuta’s favorite season was summer, so it followed that he should be like the summer sun: bright, intense, and all-consuming. Mark, on the other hand, favored fall, and sometimes reminded Yuta of early autumn sunshine: soft in its glow, yet surprisingly bold. 

It wasn’t summer when Yuta started feeling shortness of breath for the first time; it wasn’t fall, either. It was in early March, during the part of spring where no one can agree if the world still feels like winter or if it’s beginning to thaw. The thaw was usually something Yuta savored; the slow sensation of sunshine gingerly gracing his skin for the first time in months. Sure, the winter sun was a welcome reprieve from the town’s usual snow and rain-induced gloom, but even when it came out, Yuta had a hard time feeling it. It was the difference between being touched by bare hands and being touched through gloves. Early March was when that transition usually occurred, along with the first appearances of crocuses and daffodils in Yuta’s garden, and he had always relished it; relished the lead-up to his favorite season and how that seemed to elongate it. Since last year though, Yuta wasn’t sure what he thought about spring anymore – if he could still trust it. It was almost exactly a year ago after all – last March – that Yukhei had nearly let himself die of hanahaki. 

No, the first time Yuta felt an unusual shortness of breath was after soccer practice on March 6th, the day Mark Lee came home for spring break. The sun was peeking through the clouds and glittering off the distant coast as Yuta kicked the ball around with Kun, who’d met up with him in the park off Main Street once Yuta’d finished running the local junior high soccer team through some drills. Yuta had played intramurally while studying anthropology at the college a half hour away, as well as participating in several dance troops, and since he was only a year out of school, he still considered himself a relatively fit person, even if he was known to gorge on the Seo family’s matcha and azuki bean muffins until he could barely walk. That’s why he found it so odd when he ran for the ball, which Kun had kicked particularly hard and far, and felt like the air was being yanked from his lungs like a chair being pulled from under him.

He kicked it back, his body flailing wildly, and collected himself, hands on his knees and upper body heaving, bent over. Maybe he was developing asthma, he thought. He’d heard of that happening to people nearly at random and with no history of the ailment. He would have to make himself something for that. 

“You okay?” called Kun, stopping the ball quickly and jogging over to his friend. 

“Yeah I’m good,” Yuta responded, peering up at Kun sideways and flashing him his most blinding grin. “I just felt a little weird for a sec.”

Yuta gazed past Kun, noticing a figure moving on the edge of the field. Was that –

“Mark?” he yelled, heaving one more time before allowing himself to return to standing. Kun wheeled around, looking elated, and sure enough, the figure raised both arms in greeting, breaking into a run. 

“I’m baaaaack!” said Mark. Yuta thought he looked older, even, than he had over his winter break, wearing jeans and a brown herringbone bomber jacket, black hair parting down the middle to fall over a pair of round wire glasses. He looked like a city boy for some reason, not a conservation major from the countryside. Yuta practically tackled Mark in a hug, trying to absorb his friend’s smaller frame as Kun looked on in amusement. A grey cloud floated overhead, obscuring the tentative sun and making Yuta shiver. When he pulled away, he indulged in a look of performative hurt, unzipping his pocket and pulling his phone out just to confirm what he already suspected; sure enough, there were no notifications.

“How dare you, Mark Lee!” he accused, pointing his finger in Mark’s face and leaning forward so Mark felt the need to lean back in response. “How could you not tell me you were coming home today?”

Mark broke into a body-racking fit of giggles. “I’m not allowed to give you a nice surprise?”

Yuta huffed in lieu of an answer and pointed at Kun. “Was _he_ involved?”

“Mark texted me earlier and asked if I could find you and detain you for him,” Kun confirmed, and Yuta glared. 

“Whatever. Markie, you caught me so unprepared! I hope you know I won’t forgive you.” But that was a lie. Yuta had already forgiven Mark the ambush, if it required forgiving at all, and Mark knew this because the moment he’d schooled his laughing (which was no small feat) he sighed through a tight-lipped smile, eyes so big under his glasses and full of familiar warmth. 

“It’s good to see you too, man,” Mark said, adding, “and Kun also. Thanks for being my co-conspirator.” 

Now that he’d processed, Yuta realized how giddy he was. His best friend was back for a few weeks and they could do whatever they wanted; make spring sweet like it used to be. He shuffled a bit on his feet as his enthusiasm boiled over, pushing thoughts of asthma out. He slung an arm over Mark’s neck and started walking towards the rest of town while Kun went to fetch the ball like the responsible person he’d always been. 

“Ugh, why can’t you just graduate already?” Yuta whined to Mark. “I mean we’ve already gone through this once when _I_ was gone! It hasn’t even been a year yet and I’m already sick of you being away!”

Mark chuckled. “Thanks?” he said. “But you can always come visit me, dude, like you already have…”

Yuta shook his head, petulant. There were moments he thanked his lucky stars that his friends put up with his shit, and this was one of them. “Not the same,” he explained. “Don’t like sharing.”

Mark spluttered.

“Anyway!” Yuta diverted when Kun rejoined them, “Do you want to come over to mine this evening so we can catch up? Kun, you’re invited too of course along with the others, who I can shoot a text too although it might be a LITTLE LAST MINUTE, you know? That could have been avoided, but alas.” Yuta cleared his throat as his friends laughed indulgently. “But yeah, I’m in the barn these days, so we can have a little shindig. What do you say?” 

“That sounds awesome!” said Mark. “Just gotta check with my parents, but I don’t think that’ll be an issue.”

Yuta rolled his eyes and scoffed in mock disdain. “Underclassmen…”

They emerged from the park onto Main Street and Kun excused himself to check on the coffeeshop, promising to be at Yuta’s whenever they decided the gathering would be. Yuta turned to Mark. 

“I have a couple errands I have to run in town before I go home, and then I need to get ready, so while I’m doing that you can go and make sure you have permission to be out after dark.”

Mark laughed, flustered. That was one of the plethora of reasons he tended to laugh; the others ranging from fear to disgust to joy. “Alright, Yuta,” he agreed. “I’ll see you tonight. Can’t wait to be back with the gang; well – minus Johnny, I guess. Anyway, can I get another hug?”

Yuta grabbed Mark before the request had been fully uttered, rocking him back and forth and groaning in a way he thought only appropriate considering the tightness of his squeezing. 

“Whatever you want, Markie,” Yuta teased before letting his friend go. “See you tonight.” And with that Mark was backing away down the street and towards their neighborhood, giving Yuta a dorky little salute when he’d gone far enough to warrant turning around. Yuta shuddered as he watched Mark leave, the cool tinge of early spring evening setting in against his exposed arms. It was already 4:30 and the previous sunshine was diffusing into a blue tint over everything in sight. The shade reminded Yuta of the hour in summer when fireflies usually made their first appearances. If only it were warmer. 

On his way down Main, Yuta stopped into the herbalist’s before the shop closed, finding Kunhang manning it, himself home for break. A little bell jingled as the door opened and shut and Kunhang lifted his head from where it had been settled lazily against the metal counter. 

“Yuutaaa,” he called, “what do you need?”

“Hey Kunhang,” he greeted, “do you guys have any black seed? I’m all out.”

Kunhang reached under his desk and rummaged around, emerging with an empty jar about the size of a single serving of yogurt. “Sure thing,” he said, turning around and tracing his eyes and pointer finger over labels upon labels until he found the one for the product he was looking for. “Here we go. What’s it for?”

Yuta shrugged, fishing for his wallet. “Just a little chest tightness. Think I exercised too much today. I’m an old man, you know.”

Kunhang turned back around, jar of black granules in hand, and placed it on a small metal scale. “You’re the furthest thing from an old man I can think of, but alright.” He said, then named the price. Yuta laughed at Kunhang’s comment and exchanged a few bills for his purchase, which Kunhang had packed for him in a lavender-colored paper bag folded over at the top. 

“You close at five?” Yuta asked, loitering a few feet from the door. Kunhang nodded. “Perfect. You know Mark’s back?”

“I heard,” said Kunhang, settling his elbows back on the counter’s copper top. “But I haven’t had time to see him yet. I don’t think he knows I work here now.”

“Well, I’m trying to have a get-together tonight at my place to celebrate. I’ll send out details soon I think.”

Kunhang looked pleasantly surprised. “Oh! That’s awesome!” he said. “I’ll definitely be there. Is it, like – what kind of get-together?”

Yuta chuckled and Kunhang’s expression hinted at embarrassment. _College kids…_

“It’ll be chill, but I’m cool with BYOB if you have something in mind. I have a few herbal liqueurs I’ve been wanting a reason to break out, anyway.”

“Sweet,” said Kunhang. “See you tonight, I guess.”

Yuta let himself out with a chiming of the bell. “I hope so!”

Next stop was Taeyong’s flower shop. Yuta steadied himself before crossing the street, breath hitching again strangely at his trachea. He cleared his throat, trying to fight the mild jolt of terror it gave him not knowing what was wrong. It was as if when he drew air into his lungs, a small fraction of it transformed into something else that he couldn’t breathe. It was…strange; there was no other way of describing it. He pitched forward a bit and forced himself to take a full breath to calm his nerves. He’d been conditioned by his soccer coaches his whole life not to catch his breath in this position, but now that he was actually struggling, he found it was the only effective strategy. Once he felt a bit better, he crossed the street and walked into the Lee family flower shop. 

“Evening, good sir,” he said jovially upon entry. Taeyong seemed to be in the process of tallying up the day’s total from the till.

“Yuta!” he said, looking from under his bangs. “What a surprise. You need something or just stopping in to say hi?”

“Both,” Yuta answered, calm normalcy settling back into his brain as if he’d crushed it up and taken it in a little pill. “I’m getting some flowers in Mark’s honor. Have you seen him yet?”

“Yeah,” Taeyong said, setting down a handful of bills and rocking against the counter in front of him, “he stopped by earlier today. Didn’t get to talk long though. He warned me not to text you anything about it.” Taeyong smirked. 

_Who else’d seen Mark before Yuta had?_ He pushed his petulant thoughts aside. “I’m having a little impromptu party in the loft tonight if you could be bothered. Just to celebrate being reunited as a mostly group, you know – now that all the young’uns are back from break.”

Taeyong nodded. “Sounds perfect. Just tell me the details and I’ll be there.”

“Great. In the meantime,” Yuta continued, “I’d like to acquire a bouquet to decorate; make it homier, I guess. Also, I want it to be something Mark would like.” 

Taeyong pursed his lips in thought and hummed. “What about bluebell?” he asked. “They just came into season and Mark likes blue.”

“Sounds good,” Yuta agreed as Taeyong cut a square of paper, scissors gliding with a satisfying crisp sound, folded it into a cone, and began arranging the bauble-like periwinkle blossoms inside it. 

“Anything else you want in there?” asked Taeyong. Yuta hadn’t come with a plan, so he found himself pondering his options uselessly. That is, until a golden bundle of baby sunflowers caught his eye. 

“Oh!” he said, pointing in their direction. “Maybe a few of those; since I like them and because Mark brought the sunnier weather with him today.” 

Taeyong smiled softly, plucking three of the blooms and situated them amongst the bluebell in the least awkward arrangement possible considering their vast difference in size.

Yuta nodded his approval. “Looks good,” he remarked. “By the way, where did you get them? It’s not really the season...”

“The sunflowers?” Taeyong asked, and Yuta nodded again. Taeyong leaned over the counter and put a flattened hand on one side of his mouth like he had a particularly juicy secret. Yuta leaned in too. “I don’t know if you’ve heard but they have this very exciting new technology called a greenhouse. It’s still part of a classified experiment, but you know, I figured I could trust you…” Taeyong giggled at Yuta’s expense and at his own jest. 

“Alright, whatever,” Yuta grumbled, reaching again for his wallet. “stupid question.”

“What are you doing?” Taeyong shot at him. 

“Paying you?” Yuta responded. 

“No, you’re not. Friend discount; on the house.” 

“ _Discount_ isn’t supposed to mean free,” Yuta protested. 

Taeyong gave a proud look as he forced the flowers on Yuta. “I am the house, therefore I get to decide what to put on it. That’s the final word.”

Yuta tried to argue again but lost due to Taeyong’s hard-headed generosity.

Taeyong gestured to Yuta’s bag of seeds as he was preparing to leave. “That for Mark too?” he asked. 

“No, this is for me,” replied Yuta. “Just out of some herbs. Also, the flowers aren’t only for Mark. You’ll all get to enjoy them!”

Taeyong’s eyes rolled up into his head for a moment, contrasting the sweetness of his face. “Okay, okay, fair enough. I’ll see you later tonight, then. I can’t wait!”

When Yuta was out the door, he transferred his baggie so it was pinned between his elbow and side, giving him a hand to manipulate his phone. There was a text bubble on the screen from Mark confirming he could come over any time after 6:30. Yuta grinned, sending off a quick message in their friend group chat requesting the pleasure of everyone’s presence at his home at 7:45. 

Yuta’s family lived in a craftsman farmhouse with a compact cluster of woods in the backyard and a garden out front. The Nakamotos were not farmers, though, so the rest of the land which had once come with the house they sold in part and gave up in part to be used as communal land for the town. This meant that Yuta grew up with a slew of gardeners, hikers, picnickers, and campers hanging around his home, and his friends credited this with his sociability.

The house’s old barn had been converted into storage space and a study for Yuta’s father, but once he’d graduated from college and returned home, the upper loft area was turned over to Yuta so he could enjoy more privacy from his parents and younger sister. It was really nice of them to let him move in there while he decided what to do with himself. He remembered transferring his belongings to the barn like he was moving into his dorm freshman year all over again. 

Yuta and Mark hadn’t met in school, since they were four grades apart. Instead, they met because they lived next door to each other; their families’ properties separated only by a short hawthorn hedge. Once when they were in elementary and preschool respectively, they became convinced there were dinosaur bones entombed in the plant’s roots and went to work hacking at them with plastic toy shovels until they had unearthed a series of interestingly-shaped rocks, or as they had put it to their horrified parents, “triceratops horns.” 

Yuta still had those rocks on a silver saucer he kept on his dresser to display random natural objects he’d collected over the years, and the memory flashed through him at the sight of them when he walked into his room that day. He placed his bouquet in a flouted cut crystal vase which he set in the sitting area on the far end of his loft, then ran a hot shower, figuring the steam would do some good for both his chilled nerves and constricted lungs. 

When he exited the shower, he rummaged through his herb cabinet, pulling out some honey, turmeric, ginger, and ginseng. He placed the herbs into his quartz mortar along with a small spoonful of the black seed he’d bought from Kunhang, then crushed it all up with his pestle. He dumped the resulting paste into a mug, added some honey so that it all resembled liquified amber, and doused the mixture in hot water from his portable kettle. Before drinking it, he thought up a short prayer that the infusion might permanently sooth whatever inflammation was bothering his airways. He figured the strange discomfort wasn’t anything serious, but you could never be too careful. 

Yuta sipped the pungent concoction and scrolled through his phone. To his delight, most people were responding positively. Everyone besides Chenle and Taeil (who happened to be home visiting) was available, and when Yuta offered to reschedule, both of them said they could just have another gathering later and it would be for the better – Yuta’s loft was going to be a tough fit for all of them as it was. In a way it made him feel better that Johnny couldn’t be there. That was the trouble with large friend groups: finding a time when everyone was free and motivated was as difficult as finding a spell Yuta’s mother hadn’t practiced. 

Yuta hooked his phone up to his speaker and played some music while he got dressed, swapping his black bathrobe for jeans, a white t-shirt, and the letterman cardigan that’d been purchased ironically with the rest of his contemporary dance troupe in college, but quickly turned into one of his favorite items of clothing. Yuta peeked at his clock. An hour and a half and he’d be dancing around his room with his friends, pleasantly buzzed and listening to all the hijinks Mark had undoubtedly gotten himself into his freshman spring.

***

Yuta might have been a diviner, he thought stupidly, he had been that accurate in predicting how the night would go. Of course, it wasn’t hard to anticipate an outcome he’d had a hand in orchestrating, but he excused his jumbled thoughts as they could be easily chalked up to the multiple Campari drinks he’d made himself over the course of the night – or, at least, that he’d convinced Doyoung to make for him. He was in the sitting area of his room, dancing with Mark and trying not to disrupt any of his furniture in the cramped space. 

“Mark Lee,” he said, setting his glass on the coffee table so he could gesture more freely, “you mean to tell me you haven’t been up to _anything_ of note since winter break?” 

“I’m telling you man, I haven’t,” replied Mark, bouncing his way into the side of Yuta’s couch and pulling a startled face in response. A fit of tipsy giggles poured from Yuta, causing Mark to practically heave laughter.

“Okay, anyway,” continued Mark before anything else could throw him off. “It’s been midterms and stuff, so I’ve been really busy. That’s about all I can handle if I’m still gonna try to keep the radio slot Johnny left to me and I promised him I would! Some people sleep, you know.”

Yuta scoffed. “I sleep,” he said, reaching towards the table to take a swig of the herbal red liquid in his glass. “Anyway, point taken.”

“You really saw me at my wildest point, Yuta,” Mark said, sipping from his cider, “I’ve calmed down since senior spring. I was nervous about college and I let that get to me whenever I came to visit you. Now I’m adjusted; I’m a new man.”

Yuta did a little spin and found that it made him lightheaded. He chose to ignore that observation. “What have you done with the Markie I knew?” he joked, pouting. “It’s alright, I guess I just bring out the devil in you and you’ve gone soft now that I’m not around as much.”

Mark spluttered. “Yeah, dude, definitely. It’s all that dark magic and shit – total bad influence.”

Yuta rolled his eyes, nearly sending a knee into his table since he couldn’t see his legs for a moment. “Oh, shut up, that ‘dark magic’ stopped you from needing crutches after you turned your ankle playing drunk badminton of all things! Imagine explaining that to your parents. You should be thanking me.”

Mark took a performative bow, extending a leg and outstretching his arms as if he were a 17th century gentleman.

“Thank you, your majesty,” he said. “Although I seem to remember thanking you, like, a lot at the time.”

Yuta placed a hand over his chest. “That’s of little importance, Markie. Don’t you know a despot always needs his ego stroked?”

Mark looked at Yuta blankly. “A what?”

Yuta stopped dancing to stare in dramatic disappointment. “You’re kidding, right?”

Before Mark could answer (and Yuta knew, of course, that Mark had been dead serious), they were interrupted by the ringing of metal tapping against glass. Yuta turned around to find Donghyuck teetering on his bed, surrounded by Yuta’s other guests. He had a glass of something in one hand and a copper candle holder in the other, clearing his throat. 

“Is this a toast?” yelled Yukhei.

“No,” Donghyuck replied, “this is a complaint. Yuta Nakamoto: I have a personal issue with you that needs redress.”

Yuta scoffed as all his friends snickered in his direction. “Alright, Hyuck, do tell.”

“I couldn't help noticing that Yukhei got back a week ago and you never threw him a party. Same goes for Kunhang!" The supposedly offended parties just stood below Donghyuck, apparently surprised by their friend's little interruption. Jaemin and Jeno stood next to them, grinning with their arms tangled around each other by the edge of the bed. Yuta could never see the two of them together without a near violent glee overcoming him at the thought that everything had worked out. “And! And, you can't even be bothered to tune into a single one of my Twitch streams! What's up with that? You’re obviously playing favorites!”

“Hey,” Yuta began in his defense, “I’m your friend, not your teacher. I’m allowed to have favorites. Get your own best friend.”

“Oh, so he admits it!”

“He’s just jealous you’ve been hogging Mark all night, Yuta,” Doyoung interjected, and everyone laughed save Donghyuck, who wheeled around to glare at the source of the interruption. He cleared his throat. 

“Anyway,” Donghyuck continued, “In all seriousness, the reason everyone here agreed to attend this highly disrespectful event is because we love you, Mark, and we’re so happy you’re home. If your being away has taught me anything, it’s that I actually do miss your dumb face and accidentally genius sense of humor, but it’s also made me appreciate those things even more when we’re together. Don’t let Yuta keep you all to himself for the next two weeks because then I might have to challenge him to a duel, and we all know that wouldn’t end well for him.” Everyone tittered at that except Yuta, who just crossed his arms and tried to look dispassionate. 

“Well, I should be concluding, but I think if anyone else has some thoughts for Mark – or for any of the college kids for that matter since they didn't get their own parties – you should express them now.”

The group gave Donghyuck a round of applause and he took a bow, wobbling dangerously as he jumped back to the cedar wood floor. 

Next it was Taeyong’s turn. He stood where he was by Doyoung’s side rather than climb on the bed, clutching a cup in both hands and teasing Mark good-naturedly until he was a mortified mess against Yuta’s shoulder. 

Kun went next, joking that he’d hired Jisung as his temporary delivery boy, so if Mark wanted to make any money over break, he’d need to scramble and get his shit together. He concluded by telling him not to let Yukhei talk him into too many keg-stands when they’re visiting each other. Mark shook his head like a madman, waving his hands wildly in front of him as if trying to dispossess his parents of a bad impression.

Jaehyun did get up on the bed, declaring that Mark is only in college once and should be allowed to make as many bad decisions as he wants, _Kun_. Yuta found himself wondering unwelcomely exactly what kind of Bad Decisions Mark was making without him around. As Jaehyun moved on to reminiscing about childhood days of cow-tipping, Yuta was suddenly seized by another bout of breathlessness. It hit him like the slap of cold water in a polar plunge and made him feel as though every bit of tissue in his body was encased in plaster. He tried to breath through it, but it only got more uncomfortable the harder he focused on the mechanics of his breathing. Sicheng had draped himself on his side over the bed, preparing to speak no doubt, but Yuta realized guiltily he would need to miss it. The coughing was starting in earnest. 

Mark noticed. He leaned in towards Yuta, eyes wide in genuine concern. 

“You okay, man?”

Yuta nodded, covering his mouth with his fist and holding up one finger to indicate he’d return in a moment. Then, he took off to the bathroom, the eyes of the group following him in discrete curiosity until Mark assured them all he thought Yuta was fine. 

_They probably just think I drank too much_ , he reasoned as he heaved over the sink. He felt like he had something stuck in his chest that needed to be hacked up, but nothing arrived no matter how much he coughed. After a few minutes of this, he stuck his head under the faucet and drank down as much water as he could manage, feeling whatever was stuck inside him being doused back down. His breathing shallowed, but at least he didn’t have a violent need to cough anymore. Suddenly, a terrifying thought hit him: if this was asthma, the potion he’d made earlier coupled with the prayer should have taken care of it. _What was it, then?_

He looked in the mirror as he heard Sicheng finishing up, the sound of his words filtering in through the bathroom door but not actually registering in Yuta’s brain as coherent ideas. He thought he looked fine; his skin didn’t have a sickly pallor and his gold-dyed hair didn’t look greasy or sparse. His eyes were a bit glassy, but Yuta attributed that to all the coughing and gagging he’d just put himself through. He grabbed a lavender potion his mom had made him from his medicine cabinet and pressed it into the pressure points on his head and neck, trying to breath deeply as he did so. He would ask her about it in the morning and surely, she’d know what to do. 

When Yuta emerged, everyone was still milling around the bed, the quiet chatter that always signals the waning moments of a party setting in. Mark abruptly cut off his conversation with Donghyuck and bounded over to meet Yuta on his way to the group. 

“Do you feel alright?” he asked, hushed, “we were about to send someone to check on you. Need me to do anything to help? You can direct me and I’ll make you a potion or something. It might not be as good as one of yours but if you’re too tired –” 

Yuta forced a laugh, cutting off Mark’s cutely concerned ramble. “No, I’m fine, thanks though. I just felt a little nauseous for a minute there, but I’m good now.”

Mark nodded like a bobble head. “Oh, uh, okay. Cool. That’s actually probably good, you know. Now, you won’t get a hangover.” 

“Yeah,” Yuta agreed, a pit forming in his stomach as he looked into Mark’s dark brown eyes. “Probably good.”

***

Yuta awoke about two hours later in his maroon upholstered armchair, one foot extended on his coffee table right next to the bluebell and sunflower bouquet he’d picked up what seemed like days ago by now. Most of the party had gone home, but Jaehyun and Kunhang were snoozing on the bed, Jeno and Jaemin shared whispers in the corner, and Mark lay across the sofa facing Yuta. Yuta stood, ready to cattle-prod people out of his room if he had to. He woke Jaehyun and Kunhang and extracted everyone from his room with as much decorum as he could muster, and once he’d made his way back to Mark, the boy had woken up from all the hushed thank-you’s and goodbyes. His glasses were askew, and he looked around the room the way people do when they wake up somewhere they don’t remember having fallen asleep.

“Oh, hey,” he said, voice scratchy. “Am I the last one?”

“Yeah,” Yuta confirmed, perching on the couch’s armrest, “but don’t worry about it. I saved you for last since you’re easiest to get home. Let me walk you?”

Mark giggled. “You don’t have to, it’s not like I could get lost.”

“I insist,” Yuta said, smiling firmly. 

They walked, exhausted, from Yuta’s lawn to Mark’s, Yuta’s flip-flop-clad feet dampened by early morning dew cold enough to make him shiver. 

“Did you have fun?” he asked, as they came to pause by the hedge between their families’ properties. 

“I really did,” said Mark. “Thanks for getting everyone together on such short notice. I’m lucky to have a guy like you for a friend.” Mark smiled. _Sunny_ , Yuta thought, like real warmth was hitting him. 

“Same for me about you,” Yuta reciprocated, cringing silently at his awkward phrasing. Mark didn’t seem to notice. 

“By the way,” Mark added, “I forgot to say anything, but I really like the blond hair.”

“Why thank you,” Yuta said, fidgeting side to side. “This color makes me think of summer. A lot of personal changes can happen in three months, you know. I’m still convinced I’ll get something interesting out of you, yet.” Mark guffawed as he took a step into his yard. “I mean, come on, Markie,” Yuta pressed, “not even a significant other or anything? You used to be a hot item.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, dude,” Mark said, “and if you insist on prying into that, you’re only gonna be disappointed at the lack of anything to report.”

Yuta felt the air flow freely into his lungs for the first time in hours. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed his best friend – or rather he hadn’t allowed himself to realize; probably because the realization hurt. Yuta’s four years away had been a struggle, but eight was seeming like borderline cruelty.

“Fine,” Yuta offered, “I’ll not pry, then. Let’s do something tomorrow, hm? I have work but we can meet up after.”

“Sounds good.”

“Goodnight.”

“’Night. Thanks again, Yuta.” Mark started the rest of the way towards his house as Yuta waved him off.

“It was nothing.”

Yuta tidied up a bit and got ready for bed, checking his almost dead phone before turning the light off. 3:42 in the morning, _oh dear_ . Below the time was a short message from Mark. “ **_Btw I liked the flowers in ur room. Might get some tomorrow from ty_ ** **.** ”

Yuta stifled a cough. 

***

Yuta woke up the next morning gasping. He was sure the only reason his body had jolted him to sitting was because he’d stopped breathing in his sleep and it was a last-ditch effort to save him. Once he’d gathered himself and gotten mostly ready for the day, he sat at his table to do a quick tarot reading. He shuffled his art deco set against the coffee table surface, then brought them back into a deck, settling for a one-card reading since his tired and confused mind begged him for simplicity. He took the top card in the deck and flipped it over. It was the ace of cups, reversed, the image showing an orange goblet ringed by water lilies around its base and crowned by rays of sunlight shining off the rim. All of it, upside-down. 

_Self-love, intuition, repressed emotions_ … Yuta rattled off the card’s associations in a slow attempt not to be concerned by its imagery. _Self-love, intuition, repressed emotions…_ “repressed emotions” kept jumping out at him when he landed upon it. Something about that made him uneasy. Was he repressed? He took the deepest breath he could muster and slotted the cards back in their case, figuring this hunch would grow clearer the longer he lived with it. He had to be at work soon, but wanted to ask his mom for advice about the breathing situation before he headed out, so he grabbed his soccer bag and rushed down the stairs. The skylight above them revealed nothing but a grey sky. 


	2. hitting for six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost a month later lmao...enjoy and thanks for waiting!

Yuta twirled the stick of rock candy he’d picked up at the market around between his lips, enjoying how it felt rough on his tongue and filled his mouth with the flavor of unadulterated sugar. He checked his phone – no new messages. 

He tapped the toe of his sneakers against the linoleum floor of Kun’s coffeeshop and drummed his hands against the seafoam counter before pulling the candy from his lips with a pop and dunking it in his glass of mint tea. All around him, the clinking, hissing, and chatter of a well-liked café filled his ears, and the arousing scent of coffee steam kept him a fidgety kind of alert. On second thought, replace “alert” with “distracted.” 

“Did you hear me, Yuta?” Sicheng was saying, sitting at the table nearest the espresso machine and picking at a mini egg custard tart. Yuta had not heard him, that much was evident. 

Yuta sighed with some effort, then made a fake sorry face. “No – no, I apologize, babe, I didn’t.” 

Sicheng rolled his eyes. “Whatever, it wasn’t important.” He took a large bite of his tart, pale, buttery crumbs affixing to his lips. 

“Neko latte!” Kun interrupted, setting a white coffee cup in front of Yuta, the frothed milk on top of it shaped like a stubby-tailed cat that wiggled as the cup moved. Yuta had to restrain himself from jiggling its foam butt into oblivion. Kun returned a moment later with a plate. “Aaaand, let’s see, one slice of orange poppy seed bread.” He dropped his smiling customer service face momentarily as he leaned in towards Yuta. “I thought you said you could handle calling out the orders. That was my condition for letting you behind the counter, wasn’t it?” 

Yuta shrugged, repeating the order at double Kun’s original volume and smirking when a customer instantly shot out of her seat to come collect it. Yuta downed his tea, burning his throat, and stuck the melting candy back into his mouth as she made her way over, pushing the now-empty cup forward as an encouragement to leave a tip in it, which the poor girl did. Kun snatched the sticky bill from the cup and shook it out, disapproval contorting his face as he voiced his disappointment with a simple “nope.” 

“But Kun, I watched her earlier and she didn’t leave a tip when she ordered,” Yuta protested, making himself laugh until it was threatening to become a cough. _Dammit_. He pulled in a shaky breath. “I’m only trying to help.” 

Kun pointed to the seating area. “Out.” 

Yuta sulked his way to the chair opposite Sicheng, noting on his way that it was still pouring not insignificantly outside. Yuta had gotten off work early because of the rain; the indoor soccer field had been reserved weeks earlier for the high school team. Instead, he’d taken his kids to Yukhei’s gym for a short workout and then sent them home, choosing to wile away the rest of his time waiting for Mark with his buddies over a warm beverage. 

“Has he responded yet?” Sicheng asked. 

“No,” Yuta pouted. He’d sent Mark a text nearly twenty-five minutes ago saying he was ahead of schedule and to come meet him at Kun’s shop. “Ugh, wait, I’m sorry. What were you saying earlier? Nothing you say is unimportant, friend.” 

Sicheng looked like he wanted to smack Yuta and hug him at the same time. Yuta was used to this. 

“I was only teasing you for missing my speech last night because no one cut you off,” Sicheng clarified, wiping his hands against each other once he’d finished eating. 

The memory of heaving in his bathroom in an attempt to extract whatever was obstructing his airways hit Yuta like an unforeseen ocean wave. He nodded slowly, schooling his face to pretend to be irritated rather than scared. He didn’t want to lie to his friend, but not even he knew what the real issue was, and it would undoubtedly get sorted, so why worry people? 

Yuta made his face into the disappointment emoji. “Mm-hm,” he said. “Well since you can only process my suffering as it pertains to you, maybe you’ll cut me off next time you have something important to say.” 

Sicheng raised his eyebrows. “Someone’s feeling bitchy today,” he observed. “This is because your boyfriend’s not texting back, isn’t it?” 

Yuta scoffed. “Boyfriend,” he huffed in disbelief, but the word stirred a sickened feeling inside him. He chose to ignore that. “Yeah, it is,” he teased, “you jealous?” 

Sicheng shook his head. “Not at all,” he said. “It means you’ll let me be for a couple weeks.” 

Yuta laughed, his body once again nearly giving into coughing. Like, choking on one’s dinner and needing the Heimlich kind of coughing. Instead of letting that happen and calling attention to himself, he doused his throat in the contents of a glass of water. 

His breathing had been a bit better since he’d spoken with his mother that morning, but the problem wasn’t gone, and the raw coughing fits that started the day before were only growing more frequent. A particularly violent one had gripped him during practice, scaring some of his kids enough that he’d run away to the bathroom to get it under control. Thankfully, Yukhei had been in another room. 

*

Yuta came from a tradition of hedge witches, of which his mother was a shining example. She ran an apothecary in town with his father; handling the medicine and potions side of it while he handled the business angle. She was a skilled potion-maker and healer, and she had a keen sense of spiritual effects on the physical. She was often able to gain insights that seemed so spot-on that Yuta had no choice but to believe whatever she told him to do. 

She’d encouraged her children to utilize tarot cards from an early age and endeavored ever since to teach them everything she knew. Now and then, having someone so spiritually inclined as a parent could be burdensome, but it was times like these – when Yuta felt something strange and unwelcome stirring in him – that he felt he was lucky. 

When Yuta had gone to the main house that morning, he found his mother in the kitchen, making banana pancakes as his little sister looked over her advanced biology homework. The high school still had a week left before spring break. 

“Hi Haruna,” Yuta greeted, shoving her face softly into her papers and receiving a well-earned glare. 

“Good morning, dingus. You really shouldn’t be partying when you have work in the morning.” 

Haruna was a senior, less than a year younger than Mark (a fact which regularly escaped Yuta’s mind) and possessed an attitude problem – though one quite different from Yuta’s. That morning, she wore a long, eggplant-purple frock dress with lots of heavy eyeliner and her hair in a helmet-like bob. She might have been sartorially challenged and a bit of a bitch in Yuta’s view, but she was also his adorable little sister, and a veritable genius, he had to admit. 

Yuta went to the fridge and pulled out an apricot yogurt. “I assure you I can handle myself,” he said, grabbing one of a collection of mismatched spoons and plopping it into his breakfast. “The last thing I need is a seventeen-year-old lecturing me on alcohol.” 

Haruna tried to flick some of the syrup on her fork into her brother’s hair but missed. “I can’t wait until Momoka comes home to visit,” she grumbled. “Maybe you’ll listen to her.” 

Yuta’s mother gave her youngest and middle child a heavy look of disapproval as she flipped a pancake with a wet, resounding plop. The action itself communicated as much authority as any scolding words could have. Yuta just smiled sweetly, digging into his yogurt. 

“Yuta, dear,” she began, “can I interest you in some pancakes?” 

Yuta shook his head, feeling a little guilty, but he was rarely very hungry in the mornings. “No, this is enough for me,” he said. His mother smiled. It was the same smile Haruna would flash when she was about to tease him. 

“Well, I’m sure you didn’t come all the way over here just to bother your studious sister and refuse my cooking, so there has to be something else, hm? I’m right, aren’t I?” 

Yuta sighed. As usual, she was indeed correct. “As a matter of fact, there is something bothering me.” 

His mother listened attentively as he recounted the last day’s events: the asthma scare, trying to use the potion she’d taught him with a prayer, his concern over the reading he’d had that morning. All the while, she finished shaping her stack of pancakes and leaned on her elbows, steam rising from the food and swirling in front of her paisley house dress, fluffy hair, purple kerchief, and concerned face. 

“It sounds to me like you’re having anxiety about change,” she offered once he’d finished. “You always tend to have flare-ups during transition periods.” 

“Yeah,” Haruna cut in, spearing a chunk of pancake and narrowly escaping dropping it on her school papers, “remember when you were a freshman and you had a panic attack before coming home for winter break? You said you could hardly breathe all night and that you didn’t think you wanted to come back.” 

Haruna seemed a little too casual with that difficult memory for Yuta’s liking, although she was right that he hadn’t forgotten. He pinched his eyebrows together. 

“Is this a transition period though?” he asked. Everything for him was more or less the same as it had been all year. 

His mother nodded. “I’d say so. Some of your younger friends are coming home, and Taeil will be going back to the city soon. There are a lot of moving pieces in your life at the moment, dear. I don’t think it's at all strange that you’re feeling off and maybe hiding some things from yourself.” 

“Alternately,” quipped Haruna as their mother went to fetch a cloudy, pastel purple concoction she had sitting in a beaker by the window, “you’re just a drama queen.” 

Yuta started. “Wanna get your butt kicked by a college athlete?” he threatened. Haruna stuck her tongue out at him. 

“You mean former _intramural_ college athlete?” 

“That’s _enough!_ ” 

Yuta and Haruna both turned to face their mother. She looked like her hair would be suspended in exasperation if she were in a Ghibli Movie. Yuta knew that meant it was time to Shut Up. _Oops_. 

She sighed, running her hands over the lip of the beaker in her hand and muttering to herself to calm down. Then, she slid it forward to her son. 

“Bring this to work with you, Yuta,” she advised, voice still stern. “I made it fresh this morning for the shop, but I think you could use it. It has lavender, mint, chamomile, soy oil, salts, and I’ve charged it with moon water. It’s something I’ve been messing around with for dealing with anxiety and stress during liminal periods in life.” Yuta nodded, listening attentively and twirling the little vial in between his fingers. She went on. “Then later whenever you have time, I want you to sit alone with your confusion for a little while. I think that might give you more insight into what is driving this spiritually and subconsciously. Try not to smother it, whatever _it_ is.” 

Of course his mom’s advice was essentially “meditate.” Why had he even bothered to ask? He nodded one more time, subdued, and dropped the vial of pale liquid into his pocket. He would put it into a water bottle and bring it along. 

Yuta finished his yogurt and chucked the container into the recycling. “Thank you, Mom,” he said, snagging a pancake on his way out of the kitchen just to win a little more of her favor. “And have a good day, Haruna.” 

“You too, dingus.” 

“Tell me if you’re feeling better tonight!” his mother called after him, finishing off with a mild threat: “And I’ll be able to tell if you didn’t follow my directions!” 

*

Yuta sighed for what felt like the eightieth time all day, watching the café’s glass door from over Sicheng’s shoulder for any signs of Mark. He didn’t know how to summon people or things, but he half-imagined that he did, concentrating so hard on the door that it was making his eyes cross. And in a matter of seconds, it worked (or, at least, the universe gave the illusion of it working). 

Mark rushed into the coffeeshop, looking harried and tugging a cumbersome guitar case along with him which he tried desperately to protect with a too-small umbrella. The image put Yuta at attention, smiling. 

“I’m so sorry!” Mark spluttered as he rushed through the door. “I was practicing, and I didn’t check my phone!” 

“Whoa there,” Kun warned from behind the counter. “This does not need to be advertised to my entire clientele.” 

Mark shook out his umbrella and shoved it into the holder in the entryway, checking with Yuta that they planned on staying for at least a little while and apologizing sheepishly to Kun. 

He sat down at the table with Yuta and Sicheng as Yuta grinned at him. 

“Don’t be sorry, Markie-boy,” Yuta said, poking Mark in the side and making him almost giggle his way out of his chair. As the chair tipped and then slingshotted violently back to its starting position from Mark regaining his balance, it clattered so loudly that it attracted more concerned looks than Mark had when he’d busted through the door. Yuta hardly seemed to register this as he gushed about how devoted his friend was to his craft that he would haul his equipment through a rainstorm. Kun rolled his eyes and huffed in defeat at yet another disruption. 

“Mark, the usual?” he asked, and Mark nodded after nervously confirming Yuta didn’t have other plans for them to go eat somewhere. 

Only then did he allow himself to settle in, peeling off his damp jacket and balancing his guitar case against the side of his chair. 

“Did you carry that all the way here?” Sicheng asked, and Yuta shot him an obvious look. 

“Of course he did,” he replied for his friend, and Sicheng glared at him. “The kid can’t drive, after all. Just like you.” 

Mark nodded in confirmation as Kun set a mug of hot chocolate and a cream cheese bagel in front of him. “I love being referred to as ‘the kid’ as if I’m not present,” he snarked. “Also, thanks, Kun.” 

“Sure thing.” 

Yuta crunched absently at the end of his rock candy. “Aw, don’t go trying to make me feel bad when you forced me to wait for thirty-five minutes and didn’t even tell me you were on your way. It’s like you want to keep me in constant suspense with your little surprises.” Mark scowled, but his mouth was too stuffed with bagel to form a retort, so Yuta went on. “Anyway, you got a guitar in there?” 

Mark swallowed. “What do you think?” 

“I think we’re just impressed you lugged it all the way here,” Sicheng clarified, trying to clear the air of Yuta’s usual bitchiness. “Surely, you brought it for a reason.” 

Mark clapped his hands against each other to rid them of crumbs, body going taut with excitement. 

“Actually yes!” he mouthed around his food. “I did have a reason. I wanted to show off what I’ve been practicing!”

“Oooooh!” Yuta buzzed, applauding preemptively at hyper-speed. “You might want to check with the stickler in charge though,” he warned, stage whispering and indicating towards Kun. The subject of the jest frowned at his table of friends. 

“I can hear you, Yuta,” he said, “and it’s fine. Just give me a minute to turn the speakers off.” 

Soon enough, Mark had extracted his guitar from its case and had it over his knee, strumming experimentally to warm up and drawing the attention of most of the customers behind him.

“Don’t look now, Mark,” Sicheng began. “But it looks like you’ve roped yourself into a little concert.”

“A little what now?” he asked, immediately going against the advice he’d just received and turning around to meet the gazes of at least fifteen people he only marginally knew. “Oh, uh, okay. This is fine.” 

Yuta smiled to himself as he watched his friend adjust his fingers over the metal strings and clear his throat, red face betraying that he might _not_ , in fact, be fine.

Pretty soon though, he was finger-picking his way through the intro to Frank Ocean’s “ _Cayendo_.” Once Mark started singing, Yuta found himself lulled into an admiring trance at the smooth sweetness of Mark’s voice. Mark was usually shy about singing solo, but he’d been working on it and Yuta loved that he had gained some confidence. The fact that the song was in a language Yuta couldn’t understand served even further to pull him under its calm spell. 

He pretended to swoon at the little performance, rolling his eyes around and fanning himself theatrically. “Ooh, Markie, take me now,” he joked, just loud enough for his table to hear and no one else. Mark’s ears went red and he struggled to sing through a giggle. 

Right in the middle of the song though, Mark sang a stanza that Yuta did understand. It ended with a melancholy plea of love:

When I still really, really love you, like I do

If you won't, then I will

If you can't, then I will

Is it love to keep it from you?

It was such a sad sentiment. Yuta thought that if he were a more sentimental person, and under different circumstances, he would have started to cry. Though, maybe he wasn’t as unsentimental as he thought he was… 

Mark transitioned back to singing in Spanish and Yuta took the moment to lose himself less in his friend’s voice and more in the space around them: the chatter of impressed coffee-sippers, the whirring of the espresso machine, the soft and appreciative expressions on his friends’ faces. It was almost as sweet as the leftover sugar which coated the inside of his mouth – almost sweet enough for him to forget that some kind of repression within him was causing him vascular stress. Almost; almost. 

Mark plucked the last note of the song and the café broke into a pitter-patter of applause which echoed the pounding of rain outside, and in that moment, as if to remind him of the tenuousness of his _almosts_ , Yuta found himself hurled into the most intense pain he’d felt in the last twenty-four hours. 

He bent himself over and started retching into a napkin. It was the same sensation he’d gotten the night before at the party, when he’d locked himself in the bathroom and coughed himself raw into the white sink, trying to force something out that just wouldn’t budge. He felt like he had a copper wire weaving through his muscles, and someone was sending shocks of electricity through it.

Sicheng and Mark stared at him in concern and Sicheng pushed a glass of water his way. He choked out his thanks before downing it in one go, once again taking note of the clump of – something – which drifted back down along with the liquid. By the time he had himself back under control, both his friends were posing some variation on the same ‘you okay?’ question. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he lied. “Just aspirated some very sharp candy.” 

Sicheng winced. “Ouch,” he said. “At least you had the courtesy to wait until Mark was finished.” 

Yuta stuck his tongue out, but the way his friend went so casually back to teasing him actually made him feel a little better. 

“I know the Heimlich maneuver!” Mark said, a stupidly proud grin crossing his face as he set his guitar back into its case and puffed his chest out involuntarily. “So I could have saved you if it came to that.” 

Yuta smiled weakly. “That’s very reassuring, Mark.”

“NBD.” Yuta groaned, the sharp pain from only moments ago leaving him just as quickly as it had come. He cringed. Had Mark really just said “NBD?” Whatever. Mark continued. 

“Seriously though, what did you guys think?” 

“It was really good,” Sicheng said, “and I would say, a glowing testament to your four years of high school Spanish.” 

Mark snickered. “What about you, Yutaaa?” 

“Well if you couldn’t tell by the way I reacted at the beginning, I loved it! Really, like your voice just keeps getting better and better.”

Mark placed a hand over his heart, meaning to indicate that Yuta’s compliment had touched him. 

“Aren’t you not supposed to be using instruments though?” Sicheng chimed. “I mean, considering you’re an a cappella person?” 

Mark rolled his eyes. “Very funny,” he said. “But thanks, guys. I think I might play it live sometime on the Serotonin Hour.” That was the name of the radio show Johnny had left to him upon graduation. 

“You know,” Yuta began, rapping his fingers against the table, “when Johnny willed his time slot to you, I don’t think he expected you’d use it for such self-serving purposes.” 

Mark rolled his eyes even farther into his head this time. “It’s an hour where I impose my music taste on the small group of people who actually bother to tune in. What could be more self-serving?” 

Yuta clicked his tongue. Mark had a point. 

“Anyway,” said Mark, hopping to his feet, “what do you want to do, Yuta?” 

*** 

Since it was raining out, they decided they would have to stay mostly indoors, so they resolved to wander around the market hall until they came up with a more exciting activity, Yuta letting Mark store his guitar in the trunk of his car while they perused. Sicheng was invited along too, but he had a dance class to run in half an hour and needed to review his lesson plan ahead of time, so it was just the two of them. 

Well, it was just the two of them until they got to the Jung family farmstand at the end of the long, warehouse-like building. Jaehyun sat behind it, writing something into a notebook and looking so bored that his face was practically melting into the hand supporting it. 

“Oh, thank god,” he said when he saw his friends approaching. “It’s been such a slow day I was ready to choke myself out just to have something to do.” 

“Ooh, kinky,” Yuta guffawed at his friend as Mark nodded slowly. 

“Nice to see you too, man,” Mark said. 

“Want anything?” 

Yuta and Mark surveyed their options: a selection of dairy products, meat, and eggs in a set of coolers, and a table covered in artichokes, celery, pears, asparagus, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbages, and a veritable rainbow of root vegetables. As usual, the Jung family farm’s output looked delicious. Maybe Yuta would get something for his parents to put in tonight’s dinner. He grabbed a bundle of radishes by the leaves and shoved them at his friend with a grin. 

Mark, on the other hand, knew immediately what he would go for. 

“And, uh, can I get a banana milk?” 

Jaehyun nodded as Yuta gave his younger friend his best side-eye. 

“You just drank a giant hot chocolate. Haven’t you had enough dairy for one day?” 

Mark pouted, fishing for his wallet, and Yuta couldn’t help but smile at the way Mark’s eyes looked like shiny tea saucers. He could be devilishly cute sometimes. Cute enough to make Yuta want to buy shit for him, which he did, paying for the radishes and the milk before Mark even had the opportunity to complain. 

“Drink up!”

Mark glared. “Fine. I’ll just sneak-buy you something next time.” 

Yuta wobbled his head like an anime heroine as he spoke. “Oh, so I’ll get a next time? Man, this date is going so well!” he said, and Mark’s ears flushed for the second time in thirty minutes. A niggling voice in the back of Yuta’s head told him he wanted to see Mark like that more often. He brushed that idea away, not quite knowing how to process it. 

“Whatever,” Mark mumbled as Jaehyun looked on in his usual casual detachment. Yuta turned his attention back to him. 

“By the way, Jae, where are your parents? Can’t they come relieve you of your existential dread?” 

Jaehyun blew a puff of air at his bangs. “I wish,” he responded. “They’re out of town for the weekend though, so I’m left to suffer alone. Oh – which reminds me! Can you go check on Sugarfoot and Lacey for me? They probably need their water troughs refilled right about now. And besides, I’m sure they miss Mark.” 

Yuta and Mark agreed easily. Everyone loved those horses, even if Sugarfoot could be a pain in the ass. When Yuta was a teenager, she had apparently decided he’d lived long enough, because she tried to buck him off until Yuta was pretty sure he’d suffered acute whiplash. Besides Jaehyun, Johnny was the only person she seemed to tolerate (and tolerate simply meant she was a bitch to him rather than straight-up murderous), but alas, Johnny wasn’t around. 

“Perfect,” Jaehyun said. “I’d do it myself, but everyone here knows my parents and they’d definitely somehow manage to tell them I’d abandoned my post. You know where the keys to the stable are and everything, right?” 

“Yup!” 

And with that, Yuta and Mark left Jaehyun to return to pondering auto-asphyxiation. 

It had stopped raining outside, and the sky was in the process of clearing from a mournful grey to a clear periwinkle, like a windshield-wiper was slowly swiping across it to rid it of clouds. They ran into Taeil on the way to Yuta’s car, in the middle of walking five dogs of varying sizes and breeds. 

Naturally, Mark became immediately preoccupied by the tangle of fur attached tenuously to Taeil’s wrist by a set of leashes. The cute scene made Yuta’s chest go tight with fondness. 

Yuta told Taeil they’d missed him at the party the night before as Mark rolled around on the wet ground, getting his face smothered by a particularly friendly Chow Chow and laughing like his lungs were about to burst out of his chest. 

“I know, I’m sorry!” Taeil said, trying not to let himself get tugged around. “It was just last minute and I’d already been roped into cooking for my family, _and_ we had friends over – bad timing.” 

Yuta waved him off. “Don’t worry, I’ll only hold it against you forever. But when do you go back to the city?” 

“Next week,” Taeil replied, leaning down awkwardly to save Mark from five rough tongues. Taeil didn’t have a dog himself (although he did have a goose in his backyard, a fact which Yuta was never not perplexed by) but his family owned the local pet shop and he always had dog-walker duty when he was home. It was also how he made money when he was in high school. “We should definitely get together before I go back though!” Taeil continued. “You guys can help me make this pasta dish I’ve been wanting to try. Sound good Mark?” 

Mark got up, brushing the wet dirt off his backside. “What? Oh yeah, for sure! I’m always down to eat – and to see you, Taeil. I didn’t forget about you.” 

Taeil looked dryly at his younger friend. “Yeah, of course. But listen, Mark, it’s really good luck we’re home at the same time. I need you to tell me all about how the Aca-Fellas are doing.” Mark nodded shyly. Taeil had been the star of the a cappella group at his college, so he’d had plenty of run-ins with the Fellas at competitions. His own superiority at singing was something it was at times difficult to get him to shut up about. Taeil continued:

“Anyway, I should be going. These guys are getting squirrely, and I don’t want them to do their business right here. I’ll see you two around, I guess. Enjoy the rest of your date!”

 _Hey_ , Yuta thought, _that’s_ my _joke_. Somehow it made him feel weird to hear someone else use it. 

*** 

They were at Jaehyun’s stables after a short drive, and they found the keys easily. Mark scratched lovingly at Lacey’s chin as Yuta filled the troughs with water. Then, they decided it was as good a time as any to see if Johnny was free to FaceTime. He was. 

“Heyoooo,” Johnny greeted once his pixelated face flashed onto Yuta’s phone. Yuta laughed. His friend looked happy and healthy. “Oh what? You have Mark with you? Sweet!” 

They caught up on Johnny’s life for a few minutes; he was having a great time on his own, but he missed everyone and couldn’t wait to come home in the summer. 

“Hurry home,” Yuta joked, getting up from the bail of hay he’d been sitting on because Sugarfoot was cribbing on the door to her stable. “I think Taeyong is wilting without you here.” 

Johnny chuckled indulgently. “I’m sure he’ll be fine.” He gasped and his image froze in the exaggerated reaction face he’d pulled, making Mark squeak with laughter. “Is that my favorite girlie?” came his crackling voice. 

Yuta held the phone up to Sugarfoot, nudging her head a bit to get her to detach her teeth from the wood. “Sure is.” 

Johnny asked if Jaehyun was there, so Yuta informed him on their friend’s predicament. Then Johnny addressed Mark, telling him he should try braiding Sugarfoot’s dark mane – he’d found she had come to enjoy it. Mark, being the least experienced with Jaehyun’s bitch of a mare, immediately fell for it and tried, causing Sugarfoot to squeal and jerk her neck away from his touch. He fell back on his butt in surprise and Johnny cackled through Yuta’s phone speaker. 

“Aw, I see college hasn’t made you less gullible, Markie-boy.” 

“It most certainly has not,” Yuta confirmed, and Mark attempted a glare, but it only ended up looking like what he’d done when Johnny tried to teach him how to flirt that one time. 

Johnny continued. “Anyway, Mark how are you really? I don’t care about this old hag; Yuta, give the phone to Mark.”

Yuta handed over the phone with a casual threat of murder. 

Mark was doing well. Johnny asked if his a cappella group had let him rap yet. Mark rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, leaning against the stable door right next to Lacey. 

“Naw, not yet,” he said. “Just beatboxing for now. Eventually...” 

Johnny shrugged. “It’s okay. When you’re a senior you can run the group and do whatever the hell you want. And, when they see how good you are, that’ll really show ’em.” 

Yuta watched the conversation unfold, reveling in the warm feeling he got from watching some of his favorite people interact. 

“Are you doing the Serotonin Hour justice, by the way?” Johnny asked. “Playing that good shit?” 

Mark fumbled around a response so Yuta cut in, yelling from off-screen. “He’s great, Johnny! Wish you were here to tune in because I think he might be surpassing you in quality already.” 

Yuta heard Johnny scoff as Mark looked embarrassed. “Impossible!” Yuta leaned in next to Mark and Johnny asked about his own parents. 

Yuta frowned. “Can’t you just call them and ask how they’re doing?” 

“I did! I do!” Johnny said, exasperated. “I wanted to hear it from a third party though, otherwise all they tell me is ‘we’re good, John, we’re good. Everything’s just fine.’ Know what I mean?” 

Mark answered. Mr. and Mrs. Seo were doing just as well as they let on to their son, as far as he could tell. This seemed to satisfy him. 

Johnny had to go soon after this, so Yuta and Mark took the opportunity to get back in Yuta’s car and drive to his house, where brand new purple crocuses had pushed through the dirt in the front yard. 

Yuta led Mark straight to his loft when they arrived, happy to finally have some actual alone time with his friend. He didn’t know where this territorial streak was coming from. He usually did it as a joke – especially with Mark and Sicheng – but all of a sudden, he didn’t feel like he was joking anymore. He shrugged it off mentally. It probably had something to do with his repression, he figured, realizing he hadn’t followed all his mother’s instructions yet. _Oh well_ , the meditation could wait. 

“Do you want to stay for dinner?” he offered. “We can hang out all day that way, until you’re absolutely fed up with me.” 

Mark giggled as they traipsed through the wet grass, passing the fresh crocuses. 

“Uh, yeah, that sounds good,” Mark agreed. “I’ll text my parents and ask them.”

“I don’t think you’ll need to,” Yuta remarked, pointing straight ahead to where Mr. Lee stood in his driveway, getting ready to go out. “Mr. Lee!”

Mark’s dad turned around, startled for a moment, before waving. 

“Your son is eating dinner over here!” Yuta yelled. “We’ll take good care of him!”

Mark laughed nervously at Yuta’s side as his dad consented. Yuta had to admit that his life was a little emptier when Mark’s ridiculous giggle-fits weren’t a daily feature. 

Back in Yuta’s room, Mark hooked his phone up to Yuta’s Bluetooth speaker and played one of his most recent DJ set playlists while Yuta sat at his vanity and yanked a radish from the bunch he’d bought earlier from Jaehyun, biting off a chunk. It tasted watery and sharp.

“What are you doing?” Mark protested. “I thought those were for your parents.”

“I’m only taste-testing,” Yuta defended, mouth full of radish. “Calm down.” He poised the other half of the radish as if he were about to overhand chuck it in Mark’s direction. That was, in fact, what he planned to do. “Open up.” 

Mark’s eyes went wide. “But it has your spit on it!” 

Yuta rolled his eyes. “Don’t be a baby.” 

Mark nodded in acquiescence, opening his mouth for a split second before thinking of something else to worry about. 

“This seems dangerous though, like what if I choke on it?” 

“Then that’s really too bad because I do _not_ know the Heimlich,” Yuta snarked. “Try not to.” 

Mark opened his mouth again and Yuta threw the radish in an arc the few feet between them. Mark shuffled a little to align his mouth and caught the radish, doing a little dance of victory when he realized he’d succeeded. 

“Yoooooo!” he yelled around his mouthful. 

Yuta clapped, he remarked to himself, _like a cheerleader congratulating his boyfriend_. Whatever. He wasn’t above that. 

“That’s what I call synchronicity!” he said. 

Then, Yuta decided to experiment with combinations of the new earrings he’d bought recently while he and Mark talked. They ended up mostly reminiscing about the stupid hijinks they’d gotten themselves into over the years: the time they got drunk and went skinny-dipping in the bioluminescence despite a slew of recent shark sightings (Mark kept trying to drift off into the mist and when they heard a loud splash near them in the water, Yuta asked Mark if he’d retrieve his dick if it got bitten off. “Is that something you would want me to do?” Mark had responded); the time they went cliff-diving as a group and somehow Yuta managed to injure himself while stumbling over rocks to take a picture and then tried to tell everyone who hadn’t been there that he’d hurt himself jumping into the water so he wouldn’t sound like an idiot; the time Mark tried weed for the first time and became convinced he was suffering an aneurysm, begging Yuta to make him a potion for it; all the times Yuta and Mark travelled to dance competitions together as kids and shared hotel rooms, planning their entire futures as they waited to get sleepy. They had promised to always have houses next to each other, and that their families and spouses would be forever close. 

Yuta sometimes found that, with long-time friends he didn’t get to see as often as he would have liked, it was easier to reminisce than to create new, whole memories. It had nothing to do with Mark’s value as a friend, and they still came away from every summer with plenty of additional experiences and stories, but Yuta hated the feeling he sometimes got of their rhythm being off during the shorter breaks. He worried their friendship would calcify into something past tense. But then again, he figured, a deep understanding like what he and Mark shared didn’t need constant updates. 

Being with Mark sometimes took him back to being eighteen – right before he left for college – and in a way he liked that as much as he liked his friend. He just got an occasional sinking feeling that they were missing each other’s landmarks. It was irrational, but he couldn’t deny it. 

Mark had moved on to updates about his friend group as Yuta held a thin and dangly silver earring against his lobe. Mark nodded in approval and Yuta worked to stifle a sudden bout of coughing. _Ah yes. There it is_. 

Later, at the dinner table, Yuta hardly got a word in edgewise with his parents and sister grilling Mark on how his first year was wrapping up: was his friend group holding up? _Yup_. Did he like his second semester classes? _He did_. Was he still sure he wanted to pursue a conservation major? _Yes_. Did he know who he’d room with the next year? _He was going to try to room with his friend Yeri, but they had to sign a consent form for co-ed housing first_. When was his next a cappella performance? _The big one was in late April_. Did he have a significant other? 

Yuta almost hacked up a spoonful of his root vegetable soup before glaring at his mom, the source of that query. 

“Aish, why does everyone wanna know that?” asked Mark, setting his spoon down for a second. “Sorry, it’s just really funny to me. No, I don’t.” 

Yuta looked across the table to his mother and caught her sending an irritated look right back at him. He figured it was probably related to the vague threat she’d made earlier that she would know if he didn’t follow all her advice by the time he got home in the evening. 

Once they’d finished eating, the boys helped wash the dishes and Mrs. Nakamoto gifted Mark a little vial of her signature lucky potion for him to use during finals. 

“Bye, little dingus,” Haruna called to Mark as he and Yuta were on their way out for a quick post-prandial stroll. Yuta turned around. 

“Don’t talk to your elder that way!” She rolled her eyes. 

Outside, it was fully dark, and a distinct late-winter chill tinged the air enough that Yuta had to burrow his chin into the collar of his bomber jacket. Rather than the chatter of crickets they would have heard at that hour during summertime, the air sung with the hush of breeze rustling the pines and the distant break of ocean waves. Yuta thought bittersweetly about how the next time he’d see Mark for an extended time, the crickets would be back. 

“Sorry for all the prying,” Yuta grumbled as the two made their way to the little pedestrian suspension bridge over the river on the edge of town. The river led to the ocean eventually, but inland, it felt thin and closed-off all the same. This bridge passing over it was one of Yuta and Mark’s favorite spots to sit and chat late at night without anyone hearing. In fact, it was that type of spot for most of the town’s young residents. 

“Don’t be,” Mark said jovially, kicking his feet leisurely as he walked. “I expect it at this point. Bet you remember what that’s like.” 

Yuta nodded. He did. 

“You know,” Mark began, “it’s actually sorta calming to get the same questions over and over again. Cuz like, for some reason I keep getting really stressed out when I come home. I don’t know why…It’s kind of annoying.” 

Yuta pointed at Mark in recognition as he chimed in. “No – I know exactly what you mean. I used to get that too. Remember when I had that panic attack?” 

Mark nodded. “Oooh yeah, man, I do. You were calling me at like two in the morning and you sounded like you were crying. I had no idea what you were on about. But I guess now I understand more.” 

Yuta smiled to himself as the sound of the river added its own particular hush to the mix of natural noises. He tried not to take too much comfort in the idea that his friend was now suffering the same way he had. At least it was a pretty privileged form of suffering…

Yuta took a deep breath, looking up and trying to find stars in the hazy dark sky. 

“My mom calls it liminality. She says it's natural to feel spiritually detached at times of transition. It’s like your identity is thrown into flux and it can be hard to balance your competing selves all at once. You’ve got your independent college self and my little Markie boy who lives with his parents and can’t drive.” At this, Yuta grabbed Mark and tried to give him a noogie. “I think that’s what’s stressing you out. Might do you some good to recognize it and hear it verbalized.” 

Mark laughed. They were approaching the entrance to the bridge. “I guess that makes sense. I – wait.” 

Yuta took a second to register that Mark had cut himself off and stopped walking. He was staring into the distance towards the bridge, so Yuta followed his gaze. He blinked a few times in the dark, but once his vision focused, he noticed what Mark had been looking at: a dark lump in the center of the suspended walkway. It seemed to be moving – writhing almost – and Mark placed a finger over his mouth to indicate they should be silent. Little groans and giggles emanated from the wiggly lump over the rush of the water. It was a person – no – people. 

Yuta felt himself about to start laughing, and he didn’t want to disrupt whatever moment was going on in front of them, so he grabbed Mark’s arm and hauled him away, running back towards their houses and cracking up the minute they thought they were out of earshot. 

Mark tried to catch his breath from all the exertion. “Were, were they –” 

“Fucking?” Yuta finished for him. “Yeah, I think so.” 

Mark leaned over his knees. It was the same position Yuta had used several times in the last day to combat his lung issue. “Shit, man,” he said. “I was not expecting that.” 

Yuta shook his head in disbelief. “Me neither. Here; on that note, let’s get you home. The Lees deserve their son back.” 

“Sounds good. That’s enough excitement for one night.” 

***

Yuta tiptoed back into the kitchen before going to the barn to sleep, opening the fridge to sneak another few bites of the raspberry meringue cake his mom had bought on a whim from the Seos while shopping for dinner. 

Her voice in the dark startled him so badly that he jolted against the refrigerator shelving, rattling a whole row of bottled drinks and sauces and causing a racket.

“Holy shit, mom, you’re going to kill me,” he said, holding a hand against his chest like a 19th century gentlewoman. 

“Come to the living room with me, Yuta,” she said, bypassing his griping. 

Yuta gulped, following his mother’s directions until he was sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of her lounge chair. 

“Didn’t I tell you I’d notice if you blew off my instructions?” she asked, sipping from a cup of tea. It smelled like chamomile and it was making Yuta sleepy. 

“I know,” he said, “but I was with Mark all day and I didn’t want it to be weird for him while I like, went off into a corner to ruminate on my inner demons or whatever. I was still gonna do it. Also, I drank the potion you gave me.” 

“I understand Yuta,” she said, cutting him off before he could spew any more excuses, “but you’re going to do it right now. I want you to feel better.” 

“I already do feel a little better,” Yuta said, though he knew he was lying. His mom knew it too, because she gave him a skeptical sideways glance.

“You looked like you were holding in a coughing spell all through dinner,” she informed him. _Had he? Yikes…_ “So, close your eyes.” 

Yuta knew how this was going to go, but still, he let his mom lead him through breathing and visualization, focusing on tracking and changing the color and temperature of his internal energy as it passed through each of his limbs, his gut, hit neck and shoulders, his head, and finally, to his lungs. He tried to pull air in until it touched the extremity of them, boundaries of his body going fuzzy in concentration, but it was difficult for him; shaky almost. 

His mother’s voice floated into his consciousness, instructing him to imagine the hollow of his mind and let thoughts begin to trickle in without obstruction; to let them come and go without judgement. 

He thought of what Mark had been saying on their walk and how it resonated with his own experiences, how it frustrated him that he could never quite recreate the comfort of his and Mark’s dynamic when he visited him at school and they were with all Mark’s first year friends (at least Kun and Jaehyun were around at times, but still). He thought about how weird it felt for all his friends to be scattered around. Mostly though, he thought about the strange burning tightness that had been threatening to cut off his air supply over the last day whenever he dwelled too much on thoughts of his best friend, on observing him, on feeling lucky to know him. 

Next thing he knew, he was coughing aggressively again, dragging in empty breaths whenever his throat gave him a break from its violent convulsing. The metal wires felt like they’d made their way into his heart. Neither his breathing nor his coughing was satisfactory though; there was still something stuck. What on earth was wrong with him? 

Yuta latched back onto the sound of his mother’s voice as he calmed down and opened his eyes. She knelt next to him on the floor, rubbing over his back and knitting her brows in concern. 

“Oh darling,” she cooed. “Have some tea.” He drank gladly, but this time the obstruction inside him stayed right where it was halfway down his windpipe. “It’s just as I thought. Something is blocking you off from your spiritual self.” 

Yuta blinked some tears of exertion from his eyes, smirking as he returned somewhat to himself. 

“You sure it’s not just my sarcasm?” he joked, and his mom scowled. 

“Well, that’s certainly not helping,” she said. She kissed his forehead and pulled away to find her tarot deck. “But I am proud that you took that seriously. It obviously stirred something. Let me do a quick reading for you and then we can both get to bed.” 

Yuta waited as she set up the deck and drew a six of cups, reversed. He sighed. _Intense nostalgia; feeling caught in the past or with a past self_. That much was obvious. 

Yuta’s mother smiled at him softly. “Whatever this is, it’s holding you hostage in memories and longing.” He nodded, remembering his earlier conversation with Mark where they couldn’t seem to stop dwelling on an idealized highlight reel of teenage shenanigans. _Right_. “Do you want to talk about it now?” 

“Not really.” Yuta yawned. He didn’t know if it was because he was actually tired or because he wanted this to wrap up. 

Mrs. Nakamoto started packing her cards back up. “That’s alright. You should get some sleep anyway. Good night, dear.” 

“G’night.” 

*** 

Yuta gave back into coughing the minute he’d crossed the threshold to his room. He ran to the small trashcan next to his desk, still full of bottles from the night before, and heaved into it so hard he thought his eyes might pop out. Finally though, he had a twinge of relief when the thing that had been caught in his airway materialized on his tongue and his trachea cleared fully for the first time all day. He reached into his mouth and plucked out the offending object, holding it between his fingers over the trash. It was long and yellow and smooth, shaped like the wooden paddles Donghyuck’s ice cream shop gives out for testers. 

A horrifying thought crossed Yuta’s mind as he rolled the delicate yellow petal softly between his fingers, watching it disintegrate under his touch and the acid of his saliva. He turned to the bouquet on the coffee table to his left, shivering as he caught a glimpse of the sunny yellow rays of petals adorning each of the three baby sunflowers in the vase. His heart dropped into his feet. 

_Of course_. 


	3. the death cup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is about to go full college AU for a hot sec. I really hope no one from my school finds this lmao because I am uncreative. 
> 
> Anyway, again thanks for waiting for this update!

At first, Yuta didn’t tell anyone. He didn’t plan to hide it (he figured that would eventually become impossible, anyway), but he wanted a bit of time while it wasn’t obvious to sit with his deathly little secret and decide what he wanted to do. He knew himself, and he knew that the second he let slip what was going on, it would be all anyone heard from him. 

He knew immediately who it was. It was almost painfully obvious. And with this realization came the twin realization of what he had been repressing: he was in love with Mark. It felt stupid to contemplate death all for the sake of a silly boy, but he knew too that Mark was more than just that to him. Mark was his best friend, a fixture of his life, and someone whose presence had long been winding its way around him unknowingly to the very point of suffocation.

So yeah, Yuta had hanahaki for a silly boy, but then again, how many thousands had already perished for their love of a silly, beautiful boy? 

The night he spit up his first petal, he pulled out his book on _hanakotoba_ . He figured that Taeyong would have known all the symbolism by heart, but he didn’t want to go to his friend just yet. He thumbed through the book, stopping at the entry on sunflowers: _In love, sunflowers symbolize adoration, loyalty, and longevity. A flower that says, “all I see is you.”_

 _Shit_ . Yuta flopped back on his bed. This sounded serious; this sounded like it wasn’t going away on its own. He smacked himself in the face, a coughing fit threatening to seize him. _Of course it’s serious, idiot. You could die!_

Yuta tried to pretend everything was normal for the rest of Mark’s spring break, deluding himself with busyness and humor. He and Mark went to Taeil’s house and helped him cook carbonara, clowning him by pretending he was a seventy-year-old master chef and they were his young pupils. Mark even went so far as to narrate every step in the cooking process as if it were a food program on TV. Then, they went out back and took pictures of Yuta wearing Taeil’s goose as a hat while Taeil had a heart attack in the corner. 

They went with Sicheng and Donghyuck to a pond just outside of town for a late-season polar plunge, and Donghyuck tried to pull Yuta’s trunks down to demonstrate a phenomenon he referred to as “shrinkage.”

They kicked the ball around after Yuta’s work, inviting Kun, Yukhei, Jeno, Jisung, Kunhang – whoever they could get to agree. Sometimes Taeyong came along to cheer (read, _antagonize_ ). 

They got everyone together at Chenle’s house to play video games and jam on his impressive collection of instruments. At one point in the night, an inebriated Yuta stumbled (quite literally) upon Chenle’s father’s collection of shotguns in the den, and Mark had to coax him like a hostage negotiator to put one of them down before any of the house’s inhabitants came along and saw. In an unguarded moment, Yuta responded to Mark’s pleas for safety by asking why it mattered, he was just going to die anyway. 

“I mean, yeah,” Mark had replied, completely and understandably misinterpreting. “We’re all gonna die at some point, but that point is not right now.” 

Yuta also allowed Mark space at times to hang out in other configurations of their friend group, without him there. He wagered it was probably healthier for him anyway. The more he saw Mark, he thought, the faster his flowers would grow and take root. He needed time to think. 

He spent that time in his room, reading about hanahaki on the internet and trying to avoid his mother as much as possible. She still seemed to want to talk about their little meditation session the other night, though she also seemed to see that _he_ didn’t want to, and Yuta sensed that the second she spent any significant time with him, she’d be able to read easily that something much more serious was wrong than she’d thought. 

A week passed and Yuta didn’t get any worse, but he didn’t get any better, either. He continued with mild breathing trouble and intermittent coughing fits which he tried to choke down, muffle, and reserve for private moments. Most disturbingly to him, he continued coughing up several petals a day, eventually deciding to preserve them pressed between the pages of an empty notebook. 

The petals remained long and sunny yellow, so Yuta assumed that’s what it would be for the long haul. This terrified him a little; sunflowers, after all, were one of the most horrific ways to die of hanahaki. They didn’t come along with the pricking pain and premature blood of roses, but their size and heartiness made them persistent, invasive, and difficult to uproot. 

Part of him was so scared that he wanted to get the operation to get them taken out before they caused too much damage. Considering that idea in reality though, made Yuta want to puke just as much as letting them take over and kill him. He’d heard from his friends’ first-hand experience that the emptiness they were left with after was something they didn’t know that they could ever come to terms with – not to mention the cold distance they now experienced at the presence of their former loves. Yuta didn’t think he could handle that. Especially when the fear of growing apart from Mark had likely been a driving factor in intensifying his love. This particular punishment for loving the wrong person and wanting to live seemed a bit on the nose. 

He decided not to worry too much until he really had to. Besides, he was a witch. He knew other, more talented witches. Surely, they would think of something less disruptive than surgery to at least slow the process, right? 

Yuta wanted to be angry with Mark, but he knew it wasn’t the boy’s fault, so he couldn’t bring himself to be. Instead, knowledge of his ailment only spurred his desire to see his friend once he’d gone back to campus. If this love would try to murder Yuta via his favorite flower, the least he could do to spite that fact was to indulge as much as possible in the meantime. 

That’s why he decided to visit Mark for the weekend, two weeks after the end of spring break. He drove there himself on the deserted rural highway, sitting in silence and doing the breathing exercises he’d been using to smother his coughing in public. 

He met Mark at his dorm building, a two-hundred-year-old loaf-shaped structure called Winthrop Hall but affectionately nicknamed “the Dirty Throp” because its age made it prone to mold and sewage issues. That or it had been the site of several legendary orgies, depending on who you asked. It had been Yuta’s freshman dorm too, and returning to it made him feel like he was walking into a memory populated by the wrong faces; a parallel universe, perhaps.

Mark showed Yuta to his room on the third floor and let him drop his duffel bag onto the couch, Yuta exchanging a quick wave of acknowledgement with Mark’s roommate, Mingi, who was in his room gaming. Mark and Mingi ended up rooming together, Mark suspected, because they had indicated similar music taste on the first-year housing survey. They got on well enough but mostly kept to themselves and their own separate friend groups. 

Once Yuta had his things settled, he tilted his head and pouted at Mark, extending his arms.

“I didn’t get a proper greeting,” he whined, and Mark giggled, moving in to wrap his arms around his older friend. They swayed back and forth for what felt to Yuta like at least five minutes, until he felt Mark convulsing in laughter against him, complaining that he was getting uncomfortable. Yuta let him go, not sure whether Mark meant to insinuate his discomfort was physical or mental. 

They took off for the dining hall soon after, meeting up with Kun and Jaehyun in the lobby before filling their plates with curly fries and lasagna. Yuta plunked himself down into a booth in the windowless cafeteria, knocking into Mark’s side. He had a lot of memories in this room, mostly taking place during hours-long conversations monopolizing the good seats after everyone was finished eating, attempting to procrastinate himself into a sense of urgency and smugly side-eyeing the underclassmen who’d shown up during the dinner rush and couldn’t get more than two seats in a row at the communal tables. 

Yuta remembered many instances of shoving pancakes into his face trying to internally mop up the consequences of a heavy night of drinking. This dark dining hall was for Saturday hangovers, when he could afford to be morose about it, while the other, sunlight-bathed dining hall across campus was for Sunday hangovers, when he needed to shock himself into functionality. 

Yuta looked down at his food, sticking a fork into it and wondering how he practiced soccer and dance every day for four years with this as fuel. 

Kun sat down across from him and Mark in the booth, sighing and chugging a cup of the cafeteria’s absolutely seared black coffee. 

“I see Honors Project Kun is back in full swing,” Yuta remarked as he stuffed a chunk of greasy spinach and cheese into his face. 

Kun pursed his lips. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Yuta was about to continue talking about it anyway, but Jaehyun sat down, unknowingly saving his friend from an interrogation. He’d come from the gym, and if that wasn’t evident by his attire or his smell, it could have been deduced by the fact that he had about 60% more food on his plate than any of his friends. 

“What are we talking about?” he asked, tucking into a tuna melt.

“Nothing!” Kun said, glaring at Yuta before he could start asking questions about his research into ancient poets. “Jae, is there a party at Bax tonight? I feel a need to get fucked up.”

Mark giggled around his food and Yuta elbowed him fondly. He took a sip of his Coke to calm down. Mark could never contain his amusement at his usually buttoned-up upperclassmen friend’s occasional breaches of decorum. 

Jaehyun lived in Baxter House, one of the coed party houses on campus. It had a reputation for being the most “fratty,” but that really only meant that the parties were actually fun – not that the boys who lived there were predatory, for the most part. 

Yuta felt himself getting excited. He’d been told he would grow out of partying after sophomore year or so, but he never did – not even now. Junior and senior year, he used to take shots of Fireball in the common room of his, Johnny’s, and Taeyong’s suite while his roommates curled up watching rom-coms with a bottle of blackberry wine, venturing out with his younger friends on frigid winter nights in nothing more than jeans, silk button-ups, and the makeup he let Taeyong put on him in exchange for avoiding a lecture. 

“Yo –” Mark cut in, “isn’t Yukhei coming for the weekend too?”

Jaehyun nodded, swallowing. “Yes and yes,” he said, gesturing to Kun and then to Mark with the end of his fork. “There is indeed a party and you all are invited along with Yukhei and Mark’s harem.”

Yuta looked at his friend sideways. He knew Mark had a lot of female friends, but this was the first he was hearing of a “harem.”

Mark scowled. “I told you not to call them that.” 

Jaehyun went on shamelessly. “It’s margarita night in my room, so don’t pregame too much.”

Jaehyun had the biggest single in Baxter. It was originally meant for two people, and it even had a fireplace, but Jaehyun claimed he needed all the space; he was definitely trying to grow corn in a shallow planter under an L.E.D. light, as well as some crops that were, well, _not_ corn. It was definitely against housing regulations. 

Kun looked at Jaehyun skeptically. “Isn’t margarita night the pregame, though?”

Jaehyun shook his head. “Not if we do it right.”

The rest of lunch went by more or less like this until they had finished eating. Kun slapped his palms against the table at that point, pushing out of his seat, although he had no way of getting out of the booth unless Jaehyun moved. 

“Well, if this is happening, I need to finish my chapter by dinner,” he declared. “If you’ll excuse me.”

They all got up and dispersed, promising to meet at Baxter to cook dinner and help Jaehyun set up the kegs. 

Yuta accompanied Mark back to the Dirty Throp, sprawling over the couch in his room and ostensibly filling out his timesheet on his phone as Mark did homework at his desk. In reality, Yuta spent most of that time watching his friend work, admiring the way he scrunched his face up cutely in concentration, mumbled to himself as he read, and drummed his fingers absently against the hollow-sounding wood of his chair. Yuta did this as the sun began to set outside, but they didn’t bother to turn a light on, letting the dorm fall into a hazy, dream-like atmosphere that made Yuta feel like he was being lulled into a suspended, timeless trance state. 

He sighed, his airway feeling less constricted than usual. He’d grown more used to his symptoms; the constant baseline throbbing, the tickles in his throat. He was learning to control it all, and so far, it really wasn’t all that terrible. He would need to be sneaky about the flowers while he was visiting though. He would have to hold them all in until he showered the next day – then he could shove them down the drain and his coughing would be drowned out by the sound of rushing water. 

There was something weirdly comforting, Yuta thought despite himself, about the certainty of the disease. He still hadn’t accepted the fact that he would die – mostly because he held out hope for a cure (and hadn’t completely ruled out the idea of surgery). No, Yuta could be a shameless flirt at times to mask his own insecurities, so this physical manifestation of a pure, real emotion – the confirmation that it was what it felt like it was – that he hadn’t simply deluded himself – was almost welcome, and he reveled in it as he allowed himself to watch the oblivious object of his love read about soil erosion as his computer’s blue light burrowed into his corneas. 

Mark looked to Yuta, snapping his laptop shut and plunging the room into near darkness. Their phones buzzed in unison with a message from Yukhei saying he’d arrived. They made eye contact. 

“It is time,” Mark said, like a narrator in a combat video game. 

Baxter was a white Greek-revival building in the center of campus. Apparently, it had been the college president’s mansion a hundred years ago, then a frat, and now its current incarnation. Yuta thought back to the things he used to get up to in the building, saying a silent apology to the grave-rolling ghost of his school’s former president. Also apparently, someone had drunkenly fallen off the roof to their death during a party thirty years ago, and that’s why the doors to the balcony and roof were locked with near military-level efficacy. 

The party was still being set up when they arrived, so there wasn’t anyone at the door to draw sharpie smiley-faces on their hands; Yuta and Mark could walk right in. Jaehyun was in the kitchen as promised, taking stock of off-brand soda and chips. He wore a white, fertilizer-stained t-shirt and a red flannel, brown hair falling softly over his forehead as he waved his friends over. Yuta and Mark nearly got bowled over by a panicked house member sprinting from one end of the living room to the other, yelling about having the wrong adapter for the DJ equipment. She burst through the door that led to downstairs – the site where the real party would eventually be. Baxter basement was legendarily disgusting to the point that it was still sticky and smelled like beer and sweat after being scrubbed with bleach. Yuta knew this from all the times he’d been roped into helping buddies clean up the results of a Saturday night.

There was also a rumor that Baxter basement was the place on campus where a student was most likely to meet their future spouse. Yuta grimaced whenever he thought of that. He hoped not. Well, he hoped not until he realized, half in relief and half in terror, that he might not be around long enough to find out.

Yuta and Mark entered the thankfully empty kitchen, watching as Jaehyun’s face lit up and he greeted people behind them. They turned around to see Kun and Yukhei walking through the door. 

“Now the party is really starting!” Jaehyun exclaimed. “Where are the girls though?”

“Ah, they aren’t coming until after dinner,” Mark said, the last word getting crushed a little as Yukhei wrapped an arm around his neck from behind. 

“Boooo!” he said with a pout, then pulled his friend in for a hug. Yuta was his next victim. Yukhei was the picture of health, vitality, and good-cheer, and he was an absolute riot to party with, but Yuta couldn’t help the way his heart clenched and his breathing went wonky at the little scars his friend had on his arms and collar – reminders of the thorns that had once grown there. 

Kun played his “dinner party” playlist through Jaehyun’s Bluetooth speaker (getting a lot of shit from Mark: “‘dinner party’????? What are we, forty-year-old wine moms?” he said, to which Yuta replied, “actually that’s all I’ve ever aspired to be, thank you very much”).

Kun was also in charge of making everyone pork stir-fry, the rest of the group swapping as sous chef whenever they were called upon. At one point, Mark accidentally set a paper towel on fire and Kun grabbed it without hesitation, literally punching the flames out with great vigor against the oak windowsill. Jaehyun shrieked at the scene, complaining for the entire meal about how if he ended up having to pay for the burn Kun’s actions had left behind, he would have both Kun and Mark’s heads on a pike. 

Despite all that excitement, dinner ended up being quite delicious, and they enjoyed it cramped around the wooden table, seated as tight as Yuta’s happy heart felt. As the slower eaters finished up, Kun treated everyone to a quick concert on the very out-of-tune upright piano the house kept in the kitchen. 

That was the second to last thing Yuta ended up remembering from that night without the confusing haze of drunkenness crashing his memory into disarray. The last thing was Jaehyun rolling the edge of a cup onto a plate of lime and salt, shaking his hips around and sticking his tongue out as a testosterone-fueled early Arctic Monkeys song blared through the thick air of his room. He remembered being handed a margarita made with cheap tequila and mix, Kun getting fussy and opening a window to let in the chilled late-winter air, and Mark dancing saucily around the room as most of his friends sat with their beverages on the floor, a handle of the aforementioned tequila in one hand and a bag of Takis in the other. 

Yuta could feel the thrum of Baxter basement in the carpeted floor as Mark’s “girl _space_ friends” (“not my girlfriends!”) arrived. Chaeyoung, Tzuyu and Yeri sat in the circle of boys, receiving their own drinks gracefully. They had also apparently been told not to pregame. The three girls were Mark’s closest friends in his year, and if Yuta was being honest, they intimidated him. They were way more beautiful than he could ever dream of being, and he’d heard they’d made quite a splash in the school’s witchcraft club. He knew Yeri from his town though, and she had never been anything but lovely to him. 

With all the invitees arrived, they began with a game of king’s cup to get everyone nice and loose. They played with all the rules except for the king’s cup rule itself, since they were too lazy to bother grabbing a can of beer from downstairs. Yuta felt himself getting tipsy way earlier than he had expected – only halfway through his cup. He wasn’t a heavyweight, but he also wasn’t this delicate. He was about to jokingly accuse Jaehyun of slipping him something when Mark interjected,

“Anyone else feel like they’re already kinda drunk?”

Kun nodded. “Honestly, yeah.”

This prompted Jaehyun to discover that the shot glass he had been using was actually a double shot glass. “Oops. Whelp, that’ll just make this more interesting!”

Around Yuta’s third mixed drink was when things started getting a bit weird. They decided to switch from king’s cup to an impromptu voting game. 

“Of the current students,” Yukhei said, “mostly likely to drop out. 3, 2, 1.”

Almost everyone pointed at Yukhei (including himself) and he just giggled in response. Yeri was the only one to point at Mark. He gaped in offense. 

“Why me??”

“Because,” she said simply, “you’ll get frustrated and drop out to pursue your real passion for literature.”

Mark thought for a minute. “Oh…um…”

Yuta rolled his eyes. “This is why he’s not an English major even though he wants to write novels,” he teased as Mark’s ears went red. “Kid can’t even talk right.”

“I can too!” Mark spluttered. “It’s just the tequila.”

Jaehyun snorted. “Sure.”

“Whatever.”

Yukhei had downed his drink in the commotion and got up to make another. It was Mark’s turn. 

“Biggest pushover,” he said. 

Jaehyun, Yeri, Chaeyoung, Yukhei, and Mark all pointed at themselves (which Yuta found strange, but okay, _if that’s what they thought_ ), and Yuta, Tzuyu, and Kun pointed to Mark. 

“Fascinating,” said Jaehyun, and Mark let out a whine. 

“C’mooooon~”

Kun sipped his drink. “You chose yourself too, though.”

“Yeah, you’re right…”

Yuta almost doubled over at his friend. “I think you just proved the point, Markie-boy.”

Mark flushed at the teasing (or maybe it was the alcohol) and Yuta tried to focus on one of his involuntary physical reactions – a smile – rather than the other – a cough. 

After margarita number three and tequila shot number two, the game switched to paranoia – a favorite of Yuta’s, since he liked drama. He was sandwiched between Jaehyun and Chaeyoung, so that meant he would be receiving questions from one of Mark’s ‘girl _space_ friends’ and posing them to Jaehyun. Even on just the first go-around, Chaeyoung apparently decided not to go easy on him. She leaned into Yuta’s side and whispered a simple-enough question: 

“Who here do you most want to sleep with?”

She pulled away with a smirk and Yuta groaned involuntarily. He knew that would only make everyone even more likely to harang him to spill the question. He looked around the room from face to face, considering just saying Jaehyun and moving on, but part of him – and again, the alcohol too – kind of just wanted him to shoot his shot. It seemed ridiculous to get too hung up on a game where he might not even be required to share the question and where, even if he did, he could easily chalk his answer up to something meaningless if he really wanted to. It felt especially ridiculous to worry so much about it with a rooting sunflower plant currently gnawing away at his insides. He looked into his lap and announced suddenly,

“Mark.”

He picked up the coin Chaeyoung had passed on to him and flipped it. It landed on Jaehyun’s grey, college-carpet floor with a clack and rolled on its rim before settling. Heads. If anyone wanted to drink for it, he would be expected to divulge the question to the group. Without missing a beat,

“I wanna know,” Mark said with a grin, and Yuta bit his lip, shaking his head in embarrassment. Everyone around the circle nodded mildly, different levels of morbid curiosity materializing as smirks on their faces. They “clinked” plastic cups and looked to Yuta. 

He rolled his eyes. “It was, ‘who would I most want to sleep with here?’”

Yuta’s breathing grew even more pinched than he had already grown accustomed to as he watched Mark’s face scrunch up in surprise before he expelled a peal of very characteristic laughter. 

“That doesn’t surprise me at all,” Kun remarked, setting his cup on the floor and leaning back on his palms.

Mark looked at him, accusatory. “What do you mean??”

Kun only waved him off as Jaehyun huffily asked if they could move on to his turn. 

Mark wouldn’t make eye contact while Yuta tried to distract himself by crafting a question for Jaehyun to answer. Several more rounds played out like this, torturing Yuta the longer Mark averted his eyes. At first, he had chalked it up to embarrassment, but now he had himself worrying he’d actually crossed some sort of line. Well, if Mark didn’t love him before he certainly didn’t now. 

Yuta slugged back about half of his fourth margarita, wondering how much alcohol he would need to speed up the whole dying thing. 

Transitions from activity to activity grew hazy for him. If you had asked him to pinpoint how and when someone pulled out a phone to root around the shady parts of the internet for scandalous dares and someone else laid an empty tequila bottle on its side to play spin-the-bottle-or-dare, he probably would have responded that it happened in a dream. But, it did happen, and Yuta participated enthusiastically, increasingly numb to Mark’s lingering discomfort. 

The first time he felt truly aware during the game came once everyone had taken their shirts off – well, everyone but Kun, who had been observing the entire debacle with the detached disgust of an anthropologist forced to socialize with frat bros. This had been prompted by Jaehyun being dared to remove the garment and chill it in the freezer downstairs for a half hour before putting it back on. The shirt was long forgotten. 

To Yuta’s right, Yeri squirmed around and cursed under her breath as an ice cube melted between her legs. That had been another dare. Sitting cross-legged and floating on the shores of a roiling alcoholic ocean, Yuta grew disinterestedly aware that it was his turn. He dragged his fingers over the floor, imagining he could feel the soft scratch of every knot in the carpet. 

“Spin-the-bottle,” he stated, all eyes on him. He reached forward and gave the tequila bottle a swift twist, then sat back and watched it rotate, little drops of liquor flinging into a circle of dark droplets on the floor. It slowed, like a top losing momentum, and stilled between Yukhei and Mark, but resolutely more on the Mark side. _Of course_. 

For a moment, the whole room felt as still as the molded glass of the bottle; Yuta didn’t hear a breath escape a single one of his friends, nor him. He thought to himself that he’d lost his nerve, that he couldn’t – wouldn’t – put Mark, no less himself through this. But then the two of them made eye contact for the first time since Yuta had hinted in the most vulgar way possible at how he really thought about his friend. Could it be that Yuta had misread the situation? Could it be that Mark felt the same way? _The answer might save my life_. 

“So, um,” Mark pronounced in that rounded, syrupy way he spoke when he didn’t know what else to say, “are we doing this?”

Yuta remained silent as he reasoned out the situation before him. This might end up being weird for Mark, but in the end, it would be Yuta who suffered the most from all this, so he could surely allow himself this one indulgence – even punish Mark a bit with the awkward. All the thinking was started to strain his sloshing brain.

“Fuck it, yeah.” 

Yuta heard snickering coming from a booze-giddy Jaehyun to his left as he pulled himself to his knees so he could cross the circle; he ignored this. Yuta’s hands plodded over the slippery mess of playing cards in the center of the circle, thinking bizarrely that their edges felt like the collar of a well-starched dress shirt, if only to avoid processing the way Mark stared right at him the whole time. Kun backed himself up and condensed his body under Jaehyun’s desk as if trying to make more space for the kissing to occur, but Yuta knew he just wanted to remove himself, at least symbolically, from whatever was about to happen. 

Yuta sat cross-legged in front of Mark, who burst out in a little kick of laughter that made Yuta feel like some tiny being had decided to go diving in his stomach acid. He cringed at himself for that image, but he could be excused for overly fixating on his internal functions now that he knew what was wrong with his lungs. 

“Hi,” he said. 

Mark smiled, nervous. “Hi,” he returned. “No cold feet dude.”

And then they were kissing. It started softly – both of them just testing the waters. Mark’s lips were pillowy, his movements surprisingly assured. As many times as Yuta had thought about kissing Mark lately, he had to admit that the real thing wasn’t what he had been expecting. Maybe because the only time he’d seen Mark kiss anyone was in a situation similar to this when Mark was still in high school. He and Donghyuck had ended up hate-making-out at a particularly cursed group sleepover, each of them trying to prove they were good at kissing but neither really seeming to be. Mark had been easily overwhelmed by Donghyuck’s inexperienced eagerness which was, as in all things, utterly obnoxious. This though? This was different. Yuta couldn’t help thinking that Mark seemed to know exactly what he was doing. What had his Markie been getting up to without him?

Yuta lost control of his balance. How? Blame the margs. He let out a slight groan, vaguely aware of Jaehyun wolf-whistling to tease him, and fell onto his back, lips detaching from Mark’s. Mark leaned over him to see if he was doing alright. His hair looked pretty falling forward where it was overdue for a haircut and framing his curious face. _That’s it_ , Yuta thought, _I can die happy now_. In fact, as the shame hit, he wanted that to happen sooner rather than later.

“Yuta?” Mark asked, and the giggles and snide remarks from around the circle slowly ebbed into Yuta’s consciousness. 

“I’m good,” he said, grabbing Mark’s hand and letting himself be pulled back to sitting. Once there, he stared at the floor in the middle of the ring of cards between his friends. It wasn’t so much because he was embarrassed, though he was – a bit. It was more that he needed something to focus on to ground himself and refrain from hurling. The kiss had, in retrospect quite obviously, stirred something in him. _The flowers_. He thought he could feel individual leaves unfurling within him like arms outstretching to suffocate him further. He coughed weakly. 

“Excuse me,” he said, standing without waiting for a reaction and running to the bathroom down the hallway outside Jaehyun’s room. He hoped no other Baxter residents were there for a late-night shower or something. 

He secluded himself in a stall and gagged wetly into the toilet bowl, getting the bright petals up with more ease than he ever had before. They stung more too as they mixed with the bilious tequila mixture inside him. He didn’t know how long he struggled, miserable on the tile floor, but it felt to Yuta that he simply couldn’t stop the sunflowers from coming up and up and up – a punishment for daring to indulge in even the most mild and childish aspect of his love.

Finally though, they did stop, and he flushed the petals down where no one would ever find them, watching them swirl, bright against the dingy porcelain. He couldn’t wait to get back to the party and probably just collapse on the carpet to nap until Mark was ready to leave, but the night seemed to have one more complication to throw his way. 

Yukhei was leaning against the wall outside the bathroom when Yuta emerged, looking equal parts concerned and hurt, and surprisingly lucid. 

“What?” Yuta tried to play off. “You want a kiss too? I have to warn you I was just sick all over a toilet seat but whatever you’re into.”

Yukhei ignored him completely and, if Yuta was being honest, rightfully. 

“When were you going to tell me?” he asked instead. 

Yuta sighed and dug his back petulantly into the wall next to his friend. Part of him was irritated at being read so easily, but he should have figured. Yukhei might not have been famed for his intellect, but he was emotionally perceptive, and well, he had some first-hand experience. 

“I wasn’t trying to keep it from you… or from anyone,” Yuta conceded. “I just wanted time to work it out in my own head first. And I thought I’d be better at hiding it…” He laughed at himself as Yukhei smiled ruefully. 

“I’m not mad, bro,” said Yukhei, settling onto his back to match. “If anyone here is going to recognize it though, it’s me. How long have you known?”

“Since you guys’ spring break.”

Yukhei nodded slowly. “Shit, man. Are you gonna get it cut out?”

Yuta shrugged. “I don’t know yet.” He tapped his fingers against the wall behind him. “I haven’t gotten that far, but I don’t want to. Would you? Do it again?”

Yukhei shrugged too. “I don’t know either. I would do anything to have that love back, but for what it’s worth, I’m glad to be alive with you guys, enjoying Jaehyun’s stupid margarita nights and getting bullied for my grades.” He grinned, but Yuta detected something bittersweet behind it that rocked him off his internal sense of balance, like a child’s domino being battered by a magnetic pendulum. “C’mon,” Yukhei continued, grabbing Yuta by the arm and leading him to Jaehyun’s room. “Let’s get back before people start getting suspicious.”

Back in their circle of friends, Mark looked directly at Yuta and patted the small open space next to him. At this, Yuta’s heart kicked just barely, stupidly. He sat, trying to control his shaking limbs (a product of nerves and his body recovering from the trauma of a hanahaki coughing episode). Mark leaned over and laughed uncomfortably into Yuta’s side.

“Hey dude? We shouldn’t do that again, okay?” he whispered, and Yuta resolved then and there to die. Well, that was being a little dramatic, he could admit. He still wasn’t fully ready to commit to that, but if he’d been standing near a cliff before, just to feel the breeze, Mark had just unknowingly nudged him forward until he was teetering at the edge. 

Yuta nodded in tacit agreement to Mark’s proposition. They didn’t speak for the rest of the night. 

At some point after that, Tzuyu got out her tarot cards and started doing readings for people. Yuta even let himself get cajoled into a few multi-card readings for his friends. Then, Kun suggested Tzuyu pull a couple of cards for Yuta. The first one she turned over was The Moon, explaining quickly, since Yuta already knew, that this indicated he likely was in a heavy fog of uncertainty over major aspects of his life, and that if he avoided rash judgments and trusted his subconscious intuition, he would be able to come to a better understanding of what was throwing him into such a confusion. Then, she turned over Death, adding that this was probably a good thing for him – a sign that he would achieve the clarity he was seeking and take the steps he needed to move forward in life. 

He smiled and thanked her for the reading as the rest of his friends engaged in various drunken states of disinterested conversation. _What if the clarity I find is that I don’t want to move forward though?_ he thought, pressing his chin into his hands and chancing a glance over at Mark for longer than he had allowed himself since taking the seat beside him earlier. _What if the new stage in life I move forward to is letting it end?_

Mark laughed at something Yeri was saying and Yuta tore his eyes away, settling them on the rim of his well-used margarita cup. He sloshed the dregs of water he was using to stave off a headache, then brought the edge of the cup between his teeth, knocking the liquid back into his mouth with no hands. 

He lay down on the carpet in an echo of the way he had fallen earlier from Mark’s embrace, staring at the yellow-lit ceiling this time instead of Mark’s flushed face. It was almost the same color as his flower petals. 

He let out a tortuous breath and closed his eyes. He and Mark indeed did not speak for the rest of the night; not until Mark was ready to head back to his dorm. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm collaborating with my [friend](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhoTheBuckIsStucky/pseuds/WhoTheBuckIsStucky) on this series, so please check out the other work in the AU! She's an amazing writer (who came up with this idea in the first place) and the stories are meant to be read together with certain info being more present in one or the other. Definitely recommend!
> 
> I'll try to update about once weekly. (I said. You know, like a LIAR). Don't worry tho it'll come haha. 
> 
> If you're interested, I have a [YuTae yakuza fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24887278/chapters/60215773) that I recently completed! 
> 
> Finally, since this is apparently something I do now, I made a hanahaki-themed [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2CETsHUlTkqjZQXXT4abXG?si=0WUq8vDpSnySNlbcuNcvTw) because I love to suffer. Suffer with me? (The title of this fic is taken from the song "Sunflower" by Rex Orange County which is on the playlist). 
> 
> [tumblr](https://nakamoto-l.tumblr.com/)


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